As I mentioned last week, I toured the Indianapolis Art Museum's conservation lab as part of our summer ASM materials camp a decade or so ago. It was a great tour given by Dr Gregory Smith, star of this series of videos through which he explains the process of verifying the age and pedigree of an Uzbek Coat of Many Colors.
The rest of the four-part series is after the jump.
Give 'em a break, alright?
It was the pandemic. People were trapped in their houses. They were doing their best to create content that was interesting and that could be enjoyed remotely.
No, a video of two people talking remotely to each other while narrating a slide show isn't necessarily the most exciting of presentations, but I can vouch for Dr Smith being an entertaining guy. He gave me and our summer ASM campers a tour of the Indianapolis Museum of Art's conservation lab about ten years ago, and it is one of the more unexpectedly great tours that I've been on through those summer workshops.
Take some time and see what Dr Smith has to teach us about art conservation and forgery detection today.
Stephanie Kwolek absolutely belongs in the inventors hall of fame, in the women's hall of fame, on the American Chemical Society's website, and on lots of other lists of honorees.
Stephanie Kwolek, you see, invented Kevlar at DuPont in 1965.
The process of making shellac is scientifically fascinating, ridiculously complicated, economically important, and ethically questionable.
Like so many products that are 'natural', shellac amazes me because I have absolutely no idea how anyone would have thought to go through this process to turn bug secretions into a furniture sealant, a citrus fruit polish, a candy coating, and so much more.
"Well, contrary to what you might think, it's not a chemical reaction." ~ 2:17
I'll readily admit that I assumed it was based on a chemical reaction rather than what this video suggests - just after the above quote - the gallium seeps into the grain boundaries between the aluminum crystals and prevents them from holding together as they normally would.
Embrittlement, eh?
I'd eat that for a dollar!
The idea that we can create structural color - akin to that found on the wings of butterflies - using a diffraction grating and some tempered chocolate is pretty amazing.
Diffraction grating isn't too expensive, and chocolate is pretty cheap.
Looks like a fun summer project.
(Or you could just buy yourself some holographic chocolate directly.)
Today's fascinating, possible miraculous composite: ferrock.
From CertifiedEnergy...
Ferrock is created from waste steel dust (which would normally be thrown out) and silica from ground up glass, which when poured and upon reaction with carbon dioxide creates iron carbonate which binds carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the Ferrock.
Roughly 95% of the Ferrock is made from recycled materials, Ferrock is both stronger and more flexible than normal Portland cement, allowing it to be used in highly active environments where there is a consideration for seismic activity.
From ScienceDirect...
At 28 days, the strength of Ferrock concrete exceeds that of conventional concrete by 13.5 percent for compressive strength, 20 percent for split tensile strength, and 18 percent for flexural strength.
From the University of Arizona...
"This all started from an accidental discovery in a lab, which is actually the way it usually goes," [Ferrock inventory David] Stone says. "That was back in 2002, and I included as much as I knew in my doctoral dissertation. But the work goes on. It has taken years to get just a basic understanding of the chemistry involved. But this shouldn’t be surprising, since scientists are still trying to figure out Portland cement and they’ve had 200 years.
"I am into this for the long haul. Time is on our side, since in this era of global warming unsustainable processes like cement manufacture will have to give way to greener alternatives."
As always, I am guardedly hopeful but skeptical until I start seeing Ferrock showing up in buildings.
